Thursday, January 06, 2011

Sugar&Spike - Glx Sptzl Glaah #1 [1977]

I've been waiting for a decent Sugar & Spike reprint since the mid-1980s. That makes me a late-coming band-wagon jumper compared to the guys who put together GLX SPTZL GLAAH #1 back in 1977. I believe it was the only issue of this fanzine devoted to all the works of Sheldon Mayer, with special emphasis on Sugar & Spike.

That cover up above is, of course, by Mark Evanier, who I assume most people reading this are familiar with, though you might not have seen his artwork before. He also writes a 2-page article about Sugar & Spike, in particular the story "Who's Sorry Now?" from #4, which will be included in the upcoming reprint.

A lot of other contributors to the 28-page fanzine.

Well, editor Ken Gale has a site with an article about Mayer over here, and archives of his comic book radio show 'Nuff Said. Rich Morrissey is sadly no longer with us, I exchanged a few e-mails with him back in the 1990s, nice guy. Ron Goulart is a shockingly prolific author. Harry Broertjes is a name associated closely with Legion of Super-Heroes fandom. Mike Gold's edited a lot of comics over the years, and writes for ComicMix now. A few of the other names sound familiar, but I'm not sure if they're the same people I'm thinking of.

Anyway, fun little magazine, with articles about Scribbly, Black Orchid and the Three Mouseketeers, lots of fan art (including paper dolls for the kids in Legion of Super-Hero costumes), a few samples of Mayer's art (including a short note on an illustrated form letter he sent to a fan) and more.

The majority of contributors were in CAPA-alpha at that time. I had an article due to appear in the non-published #2, and the editorship was to switch to Charles Lawrence with #3. I think Charles has some material in his files, Jay just might as well.